Frederick Chilton
Dr. Frederick Chilton is a fictional character appearing in Thomas Harris' novels Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs, as well as the film adaptations Manhunter, Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs. In the novels ''Red Dragon'' Chilton is first introduced in Red Dragon as the pompous, incompetent director of a sanitarium near Baltimore, Maryland, acting as the jailer for the cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter. Lecter hates Chilton, mainly due to his incompetence and attempts to quantify him and goes out of his way to humiliate his keeper. Chilton in return punishes any misbehaviour of Lecter's by taking his drawings, books and toilet seat. When FBI profiler Will Graham goes to Lecter for advice on capturing another serial killer, Francis Dolarhyde, Chilton makes an unwelcome attempt to question Graham about Lecter's psyche. When Dolarhyde learns of Graham's visits with Lecter, the two killers attempt to correspond through the classifieds of a tabloid; a cleaning crew finds one of Dolarhyde's letters, hidden within Lecter's toilet paper spool. Chilton informs Graham and his partner, Jack Crawford, of the discovery. Lecter's reply is intercepted and revealed to contain Graham's home address, which Dolarhyde uses to track down Graham in the novel's climax. ''The Silence of the Lambs'' In The Silence of the Lambs, Chilton allows an FBI trainee, Clarice Starling, to interview Lecter about another serial killer, "Buffalo Bill"; he makes a clumsy pass at Starling at their first meeting, but is quickly rejected. Chilton gradually grows jealous of Lecter's willingness to share information with Starling rather than him, eventually using a recording device to eavesdrop on their interviews. From this, he learns of Crawford's offer to transfer Lecter to a better prison facility in exchange for Buffalo Bill's identity. Chilton learns that the offer is false but sets it up anyway, quickly hogging the spotlight as the plan's architect. Lecter is transferred, but gives false information; he claims that the killer's name is "Billy Rubin," a reference to bilirubin, a pigment found in feces — and the exact shade of Chilton's hair. Lecter gives Starling the real information needed to track down Buffalo Bill. Afterwards, Lecter makes a bloody escape from custody after using an improvised handcuff key made from a pen tube and paper clip that he'd been concealing for several years and was only able to use once transferred to police custody. He later sends a letter to Chilton while on the run, promising gruesome vengeance. ''Hannibal'' Chilton does not appear in Hannibal; the hospital has been shut down by the time the novel's events take place. Hannibal mentions that Chilton disappeared while on vacation in Jamaica seven years earlier. It is strongly suggested that he was killed by Lecter. Clarice Starling interviews a female doctor who claims that she was engaged to Chilton, and is certain that Lecter killed him. In other media *In Manhunter, the first film adaptation of Red Dragon, Chilton is played by Benjamin Hendrickson. Chilton’s role is greatly reduced, and his hatred for Lecter and his incompetence are absent. *In both The Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon, he is played by Anthony Heald (photographed on the right). **The films portray Chilton in the same manner as the novels, though some scenes with the character are altered in their adaptations. In Silence of the Lambs, for example, instead of the bilirubin pun and its specific disparaging of Chilton, Lecter supplies the name "Louis Friend" (an anagram of "iron sulfide", i.e. fool's gold) and Lecter's handcuff key is improvised from a pen stolen from Chilton shortly before Lecter's escape. While the novel leaves Chilton's demise at the hands of Lecter an open question, the ending of the film shows Lecter sitting in a small cafe, contacting Starling to tell her that "I'm having an old friend for dinner." He then proceeds to follow Chilton through a small Caribbean village as the credits roll. **In an earlier draft of the screenplay for Silence of the Lambs, Lecter finishes his phone call with Clarice, then goes indoors, where Chilton is bound and gagged, and picks up a knife, saying, "Shall we begin?" *In the television adaptation Hannibal he is portrayed by Raúl Esparza. In almost a very dark recurring gag in the show, Chilton is horribly injured in each of the three seasons and ends up becoming a victim of Francis Dolarhyde in the third season where he occupies the role originally taken by Freddy Lounds in the books and films where his lips are bitten off and is burned in a wheelchair. However Chilton survives the incident and begins receiving skin grafts. Category:Book Characters Category:Red Dragon Category:The Silence of the Lambs Category:Manhunter Category:The Silence of the Lambs (film) Category:Red Dragon (film) Category:Characters killed by Hannibal Lecter (Films) Category:Film Characters